Super Mario Bros. turned into an awesome first-person game

Level 1-1 from Super Mario Bros. has to be the most famous part of any video game, ever. The art, obstacles, the design, and, most of all, the sound, are so deeply ingrained in people that we’ve seen spinoffs of it in every medium imaginable. In the video above a clever 3D designer gave the level a first-person perspective. The catch is that you run through it while watching the standard side-scrolling view and then gave it some great next-gen textures and sound.

If you haven’t watched the video, which was posted by Youtube super user freddiew, this will explain it all:

My favorite part is the transparency on the side-scrolling view. It turns the original game view into a HUD element, which is matched by a upgrade status indicator on the bottom right (for your fireball and star) and then a recently kill list on the bottom left (Example: Mario fireballs Goomba). It’ll never be a real game, but it’s quite cleverly done.

The game went totally 2009 and even integrated some RPG elements:

If that wasn’t enough there are achievements, like “Qua-a-a-ad!” which you get for killing four enemies in a row. So yes, this seems to be part remake and part satire, but it’s still really well done.

Of course the idea isn’t entirely original, Super Paper Mario had the ability to go between 2D and 3D views and while that wasn’t first-person, it actually managed to outdo this reimagining. That’s because sections of SPM couldn’t be beaten in 2D; you had to go into 3D mode to get past certain sections. If Super Mario Bros. was to be translated to a first-person game it could be played through entirely in 2D mode without ever having to bother with the main view.

If you are curious about how a high-tech video like this was made, the notes tell us that creator Brandon Laatsch designed in 3ds Max, FumeFX, and Adobe After Effects. While the notes don’t say anything about how long it took to make, they do point out that it took an incredible 60 hours to render. That either means that some surprisingly complex stuff is going on in the video or that someone needs a new computer.